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Instead of accepting a US-brokered deal for Block 9, Hizballah and Iran make Israel’s offshore gas and oil fields a fourth war front.

When six years ago, the US tried to mediate the dispute over Block 9, which straddles the maritime waters of Lebanon and Israel (offering 60 percent to Lebanon; 40 percent to Israel), Russia, Iran and Hizballah had not yet intervened militarily in that early stage of the Syrian civil war. At the time, too, the US controlled Middle East energy markets and Israel cherished the belief that its offshore gas and oil fields were rich enough to supply Europe’s annual consumption and make the Jewish state a Middle East energy power.

But Beirut flatly rejected the US compromise then – just as it does now, except that, today, Lebanon speaks with a stronger and more aggressive voice, backed since then by Hizballah’s and Iran’s victories in the Syrian war arena.

Israel, for its part, missed the train. Major international energy firms have since drawn away from investing in the development of Israel’s Mediterranean gas and oil fields, and it has fallen back on supplying its own needs and sales to neighbors, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians. Most of all, Israel has reason to rue its rejection of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated offer to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for Russian state firms to develop those fields, finance a pipeline network to Europe and provide security for the project. Putin maintained that neither Iran nor Hizballah would venture to attack rigs and pipelines under Russian ownership and protection. This rationale worked effectively in October 2017, when Iraqi and Shiite militia forces seized the oil city of Kirkuk from the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, while refraining thus far from laying hands on the oil fields supplying Turkey, because the Kurds had earlier handed them over to the Russian Rosneft energy giant.
Netanyahu spurned Putin’s proposition at the time for the sake of Israel’s close ties with Washington.

In the present geo-strategic circumstances, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources are strongly skeptical of the chances of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Acting Undersecretary David Satterfield pulling off their bid to broker a deal between Lebanon and Israel over Block 9. Even if a compromise is negotiated, Beirut will flout it before the ink is dry, just as it did UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which prohibited Hizballah from rearming after its 2006 war with Israel or positioning armed strength in South Lebanon.

Five compelling impediments stand in the way of the US mediation bid:

The Block 9 issue has evolved from the latest turn in the Syrian war into part and parcel of a broader test: US controls the oil fields and gas plants of eastern Syria which the US-backed SDF seized from ISIS last year, including the Conoco natural gas facility. Against this, Iran, Hizballah and Syria are in position for holding Israel’s Mediterranean oil and gas facilities hostage.

A resolution of this impasse is contingent on the US and Russia reaching understandings on Syria. In their absence, US forces on Feb. 7, for the first time attacked Russian “mercenaries” helping Syrian and pro-Iranian attempting to cross the Euphrates and seize control of the Tabiyeh oil fields on the eastern bank; and Moscow, for its part, will not lift a finger to stop the Iranian Al Qods commander, Qassem Soleimani, or Hizballah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, from continuing to threaten Israel’s offshore rigs. Nasrallah said explicitly on Friday, Feb. 16: The region has entered “the battle of oil and gas. No one should look at this as a separate dispute,” he said. If the Lebanese Defense Council so decides, we [Hezbollah] are ready to disable Israel’s offshore gas installations in a couple of hours.”

The Israeli-Lebanese dispute is not the only energy-related quarrel in the region, which Secretary Tillerson is trying to tackle. For months he has been trying without success to settle the feud which oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt are fighting with Qatar. Just as the former is tangled up in the Syrian crisis, the latter is caught up in the challenge the US and Saudi Arabia is presenting to Iran’s bid for control of the Red Sea and determination of the outcome of the Yemen war.

The Trump administration’s perception of Lebanon’s government and mlitary structures is unrealistic. Its officials appear to believe that they are not fully under Iranian and Hizballah control and can still be rescued from those Shiite-imperialistic claws. Washington therefore continues to remit arms and funds to Beirut, although Hizballah takes the first cut.

For Israel, the dispute over Block 9 is a major handicap for its strategic position against its foes. Until now, Israel had to contend with three belligerent Iranian-Hizballah fronts building up from Quneitra on the Syrian Golan, southern Syria and southern Lebanon. Hizballah’s threat to its offshore gas and oil fields has added a fourth.

Since it was first published in 1909, the ScofieldReferenceBible has made uncompromisingZionists out of tens of millions of Americans. When John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), said that “50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel,” it was the Scofield Bible that he was talking about.

Although the Scofield Reference Bible contains the text of the King James Authorized Version, it is not the traditional Protestant biblebut Cyrus I. Scofield’s annotated commentary that is problematic. More than any other factor, it is Scofield’s notes that have induced generations of American evangelicals to believe that God demands their uncritical support for the modern State of Israel.

This annotated Bible contained several innovative features. It printed what amounted to a commentary on the biblical text alongside the Bible instead of in a separate volume. It introduced a chain cross–referencingsystem that tied together related verses of Scripture. It featured an attempt to date the events of the Bible chronologicaly. It was in the pages of the Scofield Reference Bible that many fundamentalist Christians encountered Archbishop James Ussher’s calculation fixing the dateofCreation at 4004 BC, and it was largely due to Scofield’s Bible notes that creationism became a major issue among Christian fundamentalists.

Cyrus Scofield was born in Clinton Township, Lenawee County, Michigan, the seventh and last child of Elias and Abigail Goodrich Scofield. Elias Scofield’s ancestors were of English and Puritan descent, but the family was nominally Episcopalian.

In 1866, he married LeontineLeBeau Cerrè, a member of a prominent French Catholic family in St. Louis. Scofield apprenticed in the law office of his brother-in-law before moving to Atchison, Kansas in late 1869. In 1871, Scofield was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives.

In 1873 he was appointed U. S. District Attorney for Kansas—at 29, the youngest in the country. Nevertheless, that same year, Scofield was forced to resign “under a cloud of scandal” because of questionable financial transactions, that may have included accepting bribes from the railroads, stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls, and securing bank promissory notes by forging signatures. It is possible Scofield was jailed on forgery charges, although there is no extant evidence in the public records. Source

Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period. Leontine Cerrè Scofield divorced him on grounds of desertion in 1883, and the same year Scofield married HettieHall von Wartz, with whom he eventually had a son.

In 1879 Scofield the crooked lawyer became a“born again preacher”

However wo years after Scofield’s reported conversion to Christianity in 1879, the Atchison Patriot was less than impressed. Describing the former Atchison resident as the “late lawyer, politician and shyster generally,” the article went on to recount a few of Scofield’s “many malicious acts.” These included a series of forgeries in St. Louis, for which he was sentenced to six months in jail.

Being a “born again” preacher did not preclude Scofield from becoming a member of an exclusive New York men’s club in 1901, either. In his devastating biography, The Incredible Scofield and His Book, Joseph M. Canfield suggests, “The admission of Scofield to the LotusClub, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion that has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C.I. Scofield.”

That someone was the Talmudic lawyer SamuelUntermeyer just one in the long line of “Presidential Advisors” who made and unmade American Presidents

When Hitler had been soundly established, Untermeyer, a New York Jewish lawyer, called for war on Germany. This call was made through radio station WABC on August 7, 1933. Heres a text of that speech

As Canfield intimates, Scofield’s theology was “most helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer’s pet projects—the Zionist Movement.”

Others have been even more explicit about the nature of Scofield’s service to the Zionist agenda. In “Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,” Prof. David W. Lutz writes, “UntermeyerusedScofield, a Kansas City lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism. Untermeyer and other wealthy and influential Zionists whom he introduced to Scofield promoted and funded the latter’s career, includingtravelinEurope.”

John Nelson Darby

On one of these European trips, OxfordUniversityPress publisher HenryFrowde “expressed immediate interest” in Scofield’s project. According to a biography of Frowde, although the OUP publisher was “[n]ot demonstrative in his religious views, all his Christian life he was associated with brethren known as ‘Exclusive.’” The “Exclusive Brethren” refers to the group of Christian evangelicals that, in an 1848 split in the Plymouth Brethren, followedJohnNelsonDarby, the Anglo-Irish missionary generally considered to have been the most influential figure in the development of ChristianZionism, and a major influence on Scofield.

Central to Christian Zionist belief is Scofield’s commentary (italicized below) on Genesis 12:3: “‘I will bless them that bless thee.’ In fulfillment closely related to the next clause, ‘And curse him that curseth thee.’ Wonderfully fulfilled in the history of the dispersion. It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew—well with those who have protected him.The future will still more remarkably prove this principle.”

Drawing on Scofield’s rather tendentious interpretation, John Hagee claims, “The man or nation that lifts a voice or hand against Israel invites the wrath of God.”

“The fourth judgment is the judgment of the nations. All the nations of the earth will be judged before God Almighty and His holy angels for the manner in which they treated the Jewish people. (See Matthew 25:31-46)”[28 July 2009, John Hagee, Charisma Magazine]

Zionist shyter Samuel Untermeyer ‘s small “investment” in a crooked ex lawyer changed the opinion of millions of American Chriatians towards Jews from Christ Killers to God’s Chosen People.

Well: a) not all Caucasians are white. You can be both Caucasian & non-white- for instance most Iranians and Arabs. b) Jews are a mixed bag & most of them look white. And now we come to the “social construct” element of race: those Jews who look white & identify with Western civilization will sign for white race/identity; on the other hand, nationalist, Judaist Jews who identify “whiteness” with their historical enemy, Europe, both pre-Christian (Greece & Rome) & Christian will opt for non-white MENA “race”.

2. Can we conflate ancestry & identity ? So, for instance, Karl Marx was not a Jew in his own eyes, only a person of Jewish ancestry. For his opponents like Bakunin and Duhring he was a “Jew” because they saw Jewishness as a genealogical stain, and therefore Marx could be a “Jew” without knowing anything of Jewish culture, either religious or secular, or possessing a sense of loyalty toward “real”, Judaistic Jews.That was label they put on him, not manifestation of his self-consciousness.
Also, atheist Jews can claim Jewish identity (tribal secular culture), but I’m skeptical about Jewish converts to Christianity. Judaist Jews, generally, don’t consider them to be Jewish anymore. Cultural gap is too wide.

And now summing up- I don’t see hyper-analysis of various areas would change much..

Jews are an ethnic religion or religious culture. They are not a “race” (except in the 19th C sense), but they do have a non-negligible genetic homogeneity (apart from Ethiopian “Jews”, most Jews are Europeanized Middle Easterners).

Theirs is a tribal ethnic religion, similar to Parsis or Sikhs: that’s why Ivanka Trump is not a Jewess, although she may think so. If a William Bond from Tuscaloosa converts to Sikhism, he won’t become a “Sikh” (although he may consider himself to be, similar to James Jesus Angleton’s progeny). Due to the tribalism, Jews remain something like a people (which is impossoble in universalist religions like Christianity, Islam or Buddhism).

In past two centuries, European Jews – with Haredi & a few other exceptions- have
assimilated into host societies: German, Russian, French, British, Austrian, Italian, Polish,..

The highest level of assimilation had been achieved in pre- Hitler Germany where most German Jews had considered themselves to be Germans primarily, and Jews only
secondarily. This can be seen from their high participation in all-German national efforts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenz%C3%A4hlung & high percentages of intermarriage, which fluctuated from 25% to 40% during 1920s.

How it all ended, we know.

American Jews, most of them, have their roots in Russian Empire (they’ve swamped earlier, more “European” German Jewish immigrants). They have retained their national culture (Yiddish, written in Hebrew script), numerous dietary laws & other customs. In short, US got mostly unassimilated ghetto Jews.

Due to their work ethics, culture, slightly higher IQ & ethnic networking, they thrived in the US in various areas & became very influential. From early 1900s to, perhaps, Six Days War in 1967, most of them tried to assimilate & become virtually indistinguishable from WASPs.

But then, things changed & many US Jews had recovered their primary ethnic-cultural identity as Jews first. Because this is a sensitive issue, there is no profusion of reliable sociological investigation data, graphs, categorizations. Just, as a rule of thumb, we can divide Jewish Americans into a few categories:

1. JINOs. Many US “Jews” are assimilated & don’t think of themselves as Jews primarily. They account for anything between 20% and 50%.

2. secular & religious Jews who possess partial Jewish identity, but for them it is blended with broader American loyalty. It is hard to tell how many people belong to this category.

3. religious Orthodox Jews who may be annoying as neighbors, but are not too politically minded.

4. the last segment would be American Jews (as different from Jewish Americans). They can be secular or religious; rich or poor; intensity of their commitment to Israel or Jewish ethnic activism may vary, but they are basically cultural aliens in US & Europe. For secularists, Auschwitz & Israel have replaced Torah & Talmud as chief emotional anticorrosives that shield them from assimilation.

My guess is that they are somewhere between 15% and 25% of all US Jews. This segment can be further divided into subsegments (for instance, some are anti-Christian, while others are not). But, what is common to them is their clear differentiation from host national cultures, stubborn insistence on their ethnic-national individuality & a sense of being an “endangered species”. Some subsegments of this portion of American Jews are true aliens in the US & through their ethnic activism, frequently masked as moral universalism, try to subvert dominant cultural values & change host society into a shapeless mess.

This is a minority of Jewish Americans, but they have economic, societal, cultural & political impact by far surpassing their numbers. And they seem not to learn from history: Brazilian Jews, because of slow but inevitable future collapse of multiracial Brazilian society are just trying to “get out”. Jewish elites, across the world, are still in thrall to Nazi-Aryan iconography & mythology as the central threat to their existence, while the world has moved past it long ago.

In this, last portion of Jewish Americans one can find typical traits of cultural alienation, ethnic paranoia, “us” vs. “them” mentality, ..basically, a sense of being a perpetual stranger who wants to shape the dominant discourse & identity in order to avoid- in their eyes- future pogroms & genocide. Because in the fevered mind of pathological Jewish nationalists, Europeans & whites, virtually all of them, possess the inner Nazi screaming to get out & finally finalize the Final Solution. This is an illustration of such a mindset:

Do you remember the terrible onslaught of the mainstream media on presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016? Dozens of revelations about his fake hair, pussy grabbing, tax avoidance and what not; dozens of public polls proving that the nation wanted Hillary and hated Trump, opinion pieces convincing you that only racist white trash could think of voting for him. They even printed that Time weekly (or was it Newsweek?) cover with a Madam President! greeting. And then came the day of counting.

This development comes to my mind as I follow the incessant attacks in the Russian media and social networks on presidential candidate Paul N. Grudinin (usually nicknamed Gru). Russian state-owned TV is supposed, by its charter, to play a neutral role in the election campaign. They did it for a week after his name was entered into the race. In that week’s time, Gru’s rating skyrocketed and almost reached that of President Putin. This was an unexpected turn of events for the Kremlin, whose political witch-doctors expected Gru to make a modest showing and to improve the doubtful legitimacy of the forthcoming elections.

When they recognised the magnitude of their mistake, they gave a command to their obedient TV channels, and Gru became the target of their daily attacks. Out of eight candidates, Gru is the only one who gets negative coverage. About him, they speak bad or nothing, just like about Trump in the US in his time.

A veteran candidate, the old Nationalist Zhirinovsky gets plenty of time on the TV, for he has only one message, Down with Gru. His wild attacks on Gru are broadcasted in every election campaign program every evening on the TV.

There is a spoiler, a tiny ‘Russian Communists’ Trotskyite party, whose only purpose in life is to steal votes from the mainstream Communist Party (KPRF). It is a virtual party that disappears after elections to come back to life before new elections. Some innocent souls in the Russian hinterland vote for them being convinced that this is theCommunist Party. They are violently anti-Gru, and post like mad in Facebook their denunciations of the not-quite-communist Gru.

However, Gru is not a run-of-the-mill communist candidate. A successful manager of an agricultural holding called Lenin Sovkhoz, he is a good example of Russian industrialists otherwise called ‘Red directors’, that is managers of Soviet factories and enterprises who adjusted to the new system. They are producers of goods for local consumption, and their interests do not coincide with those of the Putin (or Yeltsin) oligarchs. Those oligarchs made their fortunes by importing consumer goods and exporting raw materials; they are the base of Putin’s power.

The producers, both industrialists and agriculturalists, want more protectionist measures and cheaper credits, they want to boost the buying power of ordinary Russians, that is increase salaries and pensions. Their fortunes lie with the fortunes of the ordinary Russian workers. They are dissatisfied with President Putin, and even more with his government led by Mr Medvedev.

Gru became the candidate for a plethora of political organisations from the Left and from the Right; he is supported by Russian Nationalists, though his main alliance is with the KPRF (the mainstream Russian Communist Party). He is a combination of Sanders and Trump, for workers, against immigration, for protective trade barriers and low-cost credits for small producers. A self-made-man of the upper-middle class, not a billionaire, but definitely a wealthy man, he does not scare middle-class Russians who would be afraid to support a real red-in-tooth-and-claw Communist.

Though the official prediction grouop, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, VTSIOM (ВЦИОМ) claims 70% of electorate will vote for Putin and only 7% for Grudinin, the feeling on the ground is very different. There are a few sites allowing people to express their preference by “voting”; a biggish site of this sort is http://president-rf.ru/ where out of 180,000 voters 60% preferred Gru, and only 30% voted for President Putin. On other sites, Gru gets anything from 30 to 80 per cent of the vote.

It is difficult to predict the result, and it is still over a month until election day, but VTSIOM’s assessment appears too low to justify the ferocious campaign against Gru. If he were about to get 6-7%, the top wheeler-dealer, the presidential administration, would not bother and would not activate its troll factories and fake social network accounts to stop Grudinin. It seems that man has a chance to win the battle, that is if the elections are reasonably fair.

Putin has been a good president, and a popular one, but he has his limitations. He still feels obliged to keep the Deal he made with the late President Yeltsin; he still keeps fighting the Soviet memory, he is surrounded by his buddies who roll in cash; he does not support local production except for the weapons industry. While he was good for a long while, there is a feeling that the country is ripe for a changing of the guard.

A teacher in the preparatory school may be wonderful, but sooner or later, the child should move on, to new teachers. Gru is the first man who has excited the Russians since 1996, and he is likely to make a strong bid.

The Russian Left is Different.

Grudinin has the support of the left and of the right; of workers and of managers; of communists and of nationalists. How could this happen? The main reason is that the Russian Left is quite different from the European Left. The Russians are Bolsheviks. The Western Left is predominantly Menshevik.

Historically, the Russian Social Democrats were divided into Bolsheviks, the Majorites, and Mensheviks, the Minorites. The actual argument that divided the Social Democrats into these majority and minority groups is of little importance now and of even less relevance. Nowadays, the Majorites are the Left for the Majority, while Minorites are the Left for Minorities.

The Russian Left is the force for the majority, for the workers, for the natives. The Western Left is for gender, ethnic, religious minorities. If you’d ask a Western worker about the Left, he will probably tell you: the Left is not for us, they care only for gays and migrants who take our jobs.

Mensheviks are (and were) better for Jews, as Jews are the ultimate minority. Bolsheviks accepted Jews as individuals and equals, not as a separate and preferred minority group. Bolsheviks fought against the Bund, the Jewish Social Democrats, while the Mensheviks joined with the Bund.

Stalin observed (and Trotsky quoted that in his book on Stalin):

“the majority of the Menshevik group were Jews. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the Bolshevik group were ethnic Russians. In this connection a Bolshevik observed in jest that the Mensheviks constituted a Jewish group while the Bolsheviks constituted a true-Russian group and, therefore, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us Bolsheviks to organise a pogrom in the Party”.

While being comradely to Jewish comrades, Stalin effectively de-Jewified the Russian Communist Party by bringing in many ethnic Russian workers and peasants. He treated the Jews as just one of the tribes populating Eurasia, not as the Chosen Ones. This is the sin of Stalin in Jewish eyes, and that is why they condemn him now.

The Jewish influence in the Western Left has survived all these years and even outlived the massive Jewish involvement with the Left. After 1968, the Jews en masse departed to new pastures, but their influence lingered, entrenching the Jewish-friendly Menshevik tendency. They adapted the Western Left to fit their preferences and made it suitable for cohabitation with the elites. Along the way, they had lost their working class support, but they were more interested in keeping with the rulers.

The Jewish-run Mensheviks fit perfectly into the oligarchy. They believe that Anna and Susan Wojicki, the former wife of Sergei (“Google”) Brin and her sister, are unhappy discriminated women, unlike welders and auto mechanics, who are white men, the patriarchal lords of the world.

The Bolsheviks struggle for women’s equality is exemplified in free kindergartens, and the Mensheviks, in reserved places for women in the directorships of large companies.

Mensheviks are concerned about the rights of transgender people to a urinal of their preference. The Bolsheviks are concerned about the right of workers to work, to a decent wage, to their share of natural resources. You can easily understand what sort of Left is preferred in the eyes of mainstream media and their billionaire owners.

Migrants provide another cause of distinction. The Western working class achieved much during the years of the Cold War, when the Western ruling class had to compete with the Communists for workers’ loyalty. Now the rulers are eager to void these achievements – and the easiest way is through population replacement by the massive importation of migrants and refugees. For this purpose, Capital is waging wars in the Middle East and fanning strife in Africa, and they facilitate the refugees’ flight to Europe and America.

The Mensheviks, that is the Western Left, support migrants against the indigenous population, in the name of their anti-racism and internationalism. However, for all practical reasons they do the work for their masters, because migrants are easier to manipulate, they help to lower salaries, to undermine the workers’ organisations, and to destroy natural solidarity.

The Bolsheviks are against the causes of mass migration, against the use of migrants and refugees to the detriment of the indigenous population. This is the position of the Russian Communists, whose anti-migration rhetoric is so outspoken that even Trumpists would find it too brusque.

Mr Grudinin has a history of anti-immigration demands behind him. He calls for enforcing a visa regime with the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan, as now their working migrants do not need a Russian visa. He insists that every working migrant should be given the same salary as a native Russian worker, the idea being that in such conditions there will be less demand for migrants’ labour. Perhaps it makes sense to hire inexperienced dirt-cheap Tajik migrants, but if for the same price you can hire a qualified Russian worker, you will probably employ the latter.

Grudinin’s suggestions are anathema to the neo-liberal Kremlin. Putin keeps the doors of Russia wide open for immigration, to the detriment of native workers. If the immigration flow has decreased it is mostly the result of Rouble’s depreciation.

In the West, these ideas of limiting migration belong fully to the realm of the Right, or even the Alt-Right. They are described as “populist”, meaning they are popular but disapproved by the ruling elites. The Western Left has been manipulated into an unpopular position, while the popular (‘populist’) ideas have been transferred to the Right.

In Russia, the Russian Communists did not follow the path of the Mensheviks. They made all sorts of compromises, but they always stayed for the workers. They do not fight for gays, migrants and upper-class feminists. They make allies with the producers and against the rentiers and bankers.

Perhaps the Russian Communists will show the way to their Western comrades as they did a hundred years ago. These two branches of the world Left movement have had a checkered history. In the 19th century, the new-born Russian revolutionary movement was keen to learn from the West; the Russian Narodniks went on a pilgrimage to visit Marx in London seeking his advice. The Western revolutionaries of that time (including Marx) were as distrustful of Russians as Robert Mueller or John McCain. They thought Russia was so backward and so reactionary that a Russian progressive Left was an impossibility.

And then something unexpected had happened. When the guns of the First World War struck, only the Russian Left, led by Vladimir Lenin, did not lose their heads, but led their country to the victory of socialist revolution. After 1917, for many years the Russian Left was the guiding star for the world Left.

The Russians paid heavily for their cutting edge achievement, while the European peoples became the main beneficiaries of the October Revolution. They’ve got all the Russians fought for, for free. Their leaders were afraid their workers would go over to the Communists; and thus the welfare state came into being.

Eventually, both branches of the Left forgot their history. The Western Left forgot their victories were due to the Red Army’s might, and they proudly preached the new-fangled theories of Euro-Communism. The Russians, always eager to learn a new trick, fell for it, and dismantled the socialist state, sincerely expecting they would live as good as Swedes. The end was gruesome: the Russians were plunged into long years of depopulation and de-industrialisation, while the flagship of the Western left, the huge Euro-Communist parties of France and Italy disappeared. Swedish socialism has almost perished.

Over the years, the Western Left virtually disappeared, and its place was taken by the pseudo-left, who appropriated the name of the historical Left parties. Capital raised in its secret labs this poisonous pseudo-Left, with one supreme goal in mind – to make the very name of communism obnoxious and repelling.

For the Bolsheviks, the Good Ones were workers, they were the salt of the earth. Everyone could join this class by identifying with workers. The Menshevik pseudo-left has offered a shortcut to join the Good Ones: Identity Politics. You are Good if you are discriminated against. If you are black, you suffer discrimination, even if you are an Obama. If you are a woman, you suffer discrimination. If you like BDSM, you are discriminated against. If you are a migrant, you are discriminated against. If you are a Jew, a Soros or a Rothschild, you are still suffer discrimination, for just half a century ago your grandfather was not allowed to join a country club.

For Bolsheviks, discrimination is not the most urgent problem. They are surely against discrimination; but it takes a backseat after the really important question: labour/capital relationship. When the working people win, discrimination will vanish, they say. By keeping the eye on this most important bottom line, the Bolsheviks are the greatest natural enemies of the 1%.

The cause of socialism was defeated in 1991, no doubt, but it is not the first defeat. In November 1941, when the German troops reached the outskirts of Moscow, it also appeared socialism had been defeated. However, in 1945 socialism rebounded. Since 1991, the winner, Capital, claims its victory is irrevocable and irreversible. It is, they say, the end of history.

But victories and defeats can be reversed. The Soviets did not know that. They believed that “the victory of socialism is inevitable because it is progressive.” Perhaps in the long run it is inevitable, but it can happen in a thousand years, and meanwhile a nuclear war or biological experiments can exterminate the human race.

The most basic ideals of French Republic – democracy, liberty, equality – were defeated by Napoleon, by the Bourbons, by Orleans, but they rebounded.

Nothing is inevitable. The Soviet Bolsheviks believed in inevitability – and lost; while their adversaries just fought hard, not giving an inch – and won. Their attitude should be emulated. The people of the West are ready for the real-Left turn. Recent successes of Jeremy Corbyn in England, of Bernie Sanders in the US, of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France prove it. They are soft, but hard ones will come, too.

This is not the beginning of the end of the cruel man-eating neo-liberalism and its Menshevik allies, but this is the end of the beginning in the universal battle for socialism, as Churchill said of the British victory over the Germans at El Alamein. The light at the end of the tunnel is already visible. And then the Russian Communists will again become the beacon for the workers of the world.

Gru’s success can change a lot of things. His worldview has many points in common with Donald Trump. In a month’ time, we shall know how far this Russian Trump has succeeded in advancing.

What if everything you think you know about Joseph Stalin isn’t true? Similarly, what if the icon you perceive Winston Churchill to have been – is a mere illusion of history? Anomalies in the way history is written is nothing new; the more or less objective truth is published many years later.

In this episode, Mikhail Poltoranin, former Head of the Government Committee on the Declassification of KGB Archives, talks about the way that the US airforce bombed Soviet bases in 1950 – in reaction to Stalin’s power. But they didn’t stop until their mission was complete – that is the death of Stalin. It’s even possible that others within the Soviet system were asked to take responsibility for his death – given the many theorists who took on that claim, as explained by Poltoranin.

Joseph Stalin has been attributed many crimes against humanity – the figures are in the hundreds of millions according to some liberal sources. In reality, contemporary Russian historians cannot account for even a fraction of the said deaths he is thought to have ordered. That is not to say that he never did such a thing – the current figure is around 100,000 people over the course of his leadership (compared to many millions attributed to him in common text books.)

But, in the words of President Putin himself – Stalin must be judged by the era that he lived in. In a time when the country faced almost sure defeat, jeopardised by the fifth column – “enemies of the state” were done away with. Is this correct according to contemporary human rights law? Surely not – but I struggle to find an example of another country that faced the choice between survival, or its ultimate destruction at the hands of foreign powers and its internal accomplices in the most critical of times.

Stalin turned a mostly agrarian society into a force to be reckoned with in the defeat of Nazi Germany – albeit at a high human cost. But does that make him a dictator? For many Russians, it is a very personal question and is highly contested. Stalin is a figure about whom much is written – but not much of it is based on fact. What remains, is that just 16 years after the USSR was reduced to rubble by the Germans – the Soviet Union won the space race, by launching the first man into space. Against a country that has never seen destruction on its own soil, together with the economy.

Very little about Stalin written in Western literature is true – you could test it now by doing a simple google search for “Stalin quotes”. Not one image that shows up is attributed to a real text.

Why might the USSR not have publicised such crucial information earlier? Or even the modern Russian state? In my personal opinion – nobody wants to admit defeat. If the MI6 was able to carry this out, this means the intelligence was somehow better equipped or more richly resourced to have been successful. Of course that’s not hard, when international bankers have their bets on you.

Inessa Sinchougova is an Editor and Journalist at Fort Russ News, as well as a research fellow and translator of the Belgrade based think-tank, the Center for Syncretic Studies. She was educate

Although we do have media exploitation of shoah; Jewish ethnic animus toward Czarist regime, etc., the notion of the Jewish Bolshevism is wrong.

Jews had not been numerically over-represented in the CP USSR (and its earlier variants). They’ve comprised ca. 5% of all card-carrying Bolsheviks & close to 50% of the Politburo during Lenin’s times (never reached 50%+)*. They- Russian & Ukrainian Jews (except in the BUND)- never advocated separate Jewish interests, and, what is more important, they did not perceive themselves as Jews in a national sense- except in cases when they fiercely attacked Zionism as a “grave ideological error”. Many of them were actually Russian national loyalists, which was evident from their behavior in the Brest-Litovsk treaty crisis, when Lenin had had virtually all the Bolshevik party & Politburo against himself, this time based purely on “national pride” agenda (“we won’t give our land to Germans”.)

As for influence, to put it shortly: it was Lenin, an ethnic Russian with marginal Jewish ancestry (a converted mother’s father Moishko Blank, himself an anti-Semite) he wasn’t aware of until he was 35, and later didn’t care about, who has created & lead the successful global socio-political transformation called Communism. Lenin designed & built Bolshevik party as a highly militarized, disciplined & ideologically dogmatic sect, a universal machine for transformation of all resentments (social, national, religious, personal, ethnic, “racial”, cultural, economic,..) into a “laser beam” of focused, almost inevitably violent determination for possession of total power and creation of a new, Communist utopia.

Both ideas and actions in the crucial periods from 1903. to 1922. were his, frequently opposed by more cautious Russian & ethnically non-Russian Bolshevik leadership. The most prominent Bolshevik rulers during the revolution and civil war, of Jewish origin, had been: Zinoviev, Kamenev, Sverdlov and Trotsky. Sverdlov was perhaps the most influential among Bolshevik Jews in the earliest stage, but he died (or was killed) too soon. He himself never developed any idea, nor had been the central figure in any significant event- except the execution of Russian royal family. Trotsky, who had been a Menshevik but switched his loyalties to Lenin, played the pivotal role in organization of the Red Army, but his vanity & verbal excesses have alienated him from many other top Bolsheviks who feared his influence: so “Jewish” Zinoviev and Kamenev formed an alliance with the Georgian Stalin (and his lapdogs) to isolate & destroy Trotsky. They succeeded, but were later destroyed in the power struggles with other Stalin’s allies (this time ethnic Russian Bukharin and others). At the end, the entire “old guard”, except Stalin, had been killed, one way or another. So much for “Jewish solidarity”.

What Kevin Macdonald can’t (or won’t) see is that pure stats don’t mean much. One person, Lenin, totally dominated the party & the Revolution (the foundation of the Bolshevik ideology, the central strategy and tactics in post-February days, the planning and execution of the October coup d’etat, formation of the Cheka, the decision to switch to War Communism, the tactical withdrawal in the humiliating Brest-Litovsk treaty, crucial political/economic “retreat” embodied in the New Economic policy, …). On many occasions Bolsheviks of Jewish extraction had tried- unsuccessfully- to counter Lenin’s unique combination of radicalism & pragmatism, but inevitably failed: they’ve been frequently too radical, but not realistic enough; in other instances like the October coup, they were mostly too cautious and afraid to move (so was Stalin). In all critical moments Lenin virtually raped the party- and won.

Somewhere around 1920-1921, Stalin became the man of Lenin’s primary confidence. He was the only person who could see him without prior notice (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Trotsky, ..and other Jewish Bolsheviks couldn’t). After 1922. (Lenin died in 1924., completely incapacitated), Stalin was, effectively, the most influential Communist ruler & all other influential political figures, whether Jewish, ethnic Russian, Caucasian, Polish, Baltic, Ukrainian, …could not overthrow him, nor impose their ideas and practices. Eventually, Stalin got rid off all leaders of revolution and mercifully “spared” only figures of secondary importance whose chief characteristics had been blind loyalty to him.

To summarize: over-representation of Soviet Jews in the early stages of the Communist revolution (Sverdlov, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Uritsky, Ioffe ..or their enemies like Martov, Gershuny, Blumkin (he has later “converted”, but was executed as a Trotskyst during the Purges), Dora Kaplan …) or in Stalin’s Soviet Union (Kaganovich, Yagoda, Litvinov, Neftali Frenkel, ..) is an interesting phenomenon, but proves- nothing. The very formation of a new type of society was, essentially, the result of Lenin’s genius; consolidation of the new “theocratic” empire was in the hands of one man, Stalin. All Communist Jews, from top to bottom, were mostly executors and followers, not shapers of history along the ideas & practices they themselves had created. And I won’t address the issue of Soviet Jewish victims (Mandel’shtam, Mikhoels, Babel’, …). So, Kevin MacDonald is partially right, but his thesis about some imaginary Jewish survival strategy & brilliant success and “high life” in the Soviet Union they had- according to MacDonald – made for themselves is simply- wrong.

———————————-

* Of the 21 full members of the Central Committee of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party at the time of the October 1917 Revolution, six were of Jewish origin. That makes 29%. Or 7 out of 31, if you include the 10 candidate members.

Russian media sources revealed that on Tuesday Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, instructed the Russian Defence Ministry to begin talks with its Lebanese counterpart to sign a military cooperation agreement between Russia and Lebanon.

The draft agreement to be signed between the parties included the opening of Lebanese ports in front of Russian military vessels and fleets, in addition to making Lebanese airports a transit station for Russian aircrafts and fighters, and the dispatch of Russian military experts to train and strengthen the capabilities of members of the Lebanese army, according to the Russian agency Sputnik.

The draft agreement provides the exchange of information on defence issues and the promotion of mutual trust to combat common terrorism, as well as the development of relations in the field of joint military training in various areas related to military service, medicine, engineering, geography and others.

The agreement also included the participation in maritime search and rescue activities, combating terrorism and piracy. Russia will also grant Lebanese military delegations the right to attend all Russian military exercises, meetings and conferences that are to be held on military and defence matters.

So to define the Energy industry in terms of economics and finance only makes sense in terms of human psychology and current customs.

The real currency of modern society is Joules. Energy. Money is fungible, they say, meaning that since it’s a human abstraction we can make whatever we want to be money into money, and we can make that money be worth whatever we decide.

Not so with Joules.

It’s an indictment of our screwed-up system of Finance that we can’t do things we absolutely have to do because we can’t afford it financially. That means our system of evaluating cost and benefits has malfunctioned and is giving false readings and false incentives.

However, that doesn’t make any difference once it costs 1 Joule of energy to extract 1 Joule of energy. Once that happens, none of our shared hallucination of Finance makes any difference. Fracking is very energy-intensive, if you look at all the inputs. Petroleum production everywhere has a collapsing EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested). That’s the real issue.

At some point we’ll pull our heads out of our asses, force our Oligarchs to be inconvenienced and give up some of their accumulated advantages and fix our system of Finance. But that won’t change the fact that we’re getting closer to the point when on balance we expend more energy than we get from extraction.

*

Oil is a geopolitical weapon so information is completely distorted. If shale is such a good play why is Trump opening up then deep sea drilling everywhere and in reservations ? Sounds not very convincing. Horror would be if US is running out of oil, Saudi Aramco IPO is a sign that Saudis want to leave a sinking ship. So who will provide the oil ? Russia, Iran ? Is that why we see war in the Middle East? It is better not to be naive regarding oil and energy.

The fracking companies racked up 200 billion of negative cash-flow in the last years. The FED created a multitude of silly businesses, from fracking to TESLA / UBER, which make people believe everything is awesome. A look into the balance sheets shows you that this is not correct. Even in the current interest environment these money-burning machines shall collapse under their debt.

“The US oil shale reserves has over 2 trillion barrels of recoverable hydrocarbons.”

That means, how much chemicals are to be put into the ground (water)?

*

NOT ONE SHALE OIL COMPANY HAS POSTED ONE PENNY OF PROFIT FROM SHALE OPERATIONS IN 12 YEARS!

NOT ONE! The entire industry is living on debt. ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, etc. have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled their debt levels in the last twelve years. $52 a barrel won’t service their debt.

Another point, the public can’t afford higher energy prices. So the industry is stuck. 14 million barrels a day? LMAO! We can’t even use what they are pumping now. Demand is down so that we are stacking the stuff at these levels.

We are reaching a one for one cost per barrel pumped. When we get closer than 3:1 it is pretty much over…..for the average consumer. Statoil CEO just got through stating that 70% of the current known oil/gas will never see the light of day…..it will cost too much to get it out.

Here are now 1.7 million active shale wells operating in the US. To keep production constant 89.8% of them will need to be replaced over the next five years. At an average price of $4.4 million per well that will be $7.3 trillion.

1.7 M wells at 7.3 T, each well would have to achieve a profit of $4.4 M to reach break even. Taxes, licenses, operational expenses not included. 7.3 T spread over the 5 years would be 1.5 T or 7.9% of GDP.

Gasoline is still cheaper than orange juice not to mention healthcare.

Apparently, the main topic of discussion at that year’s meeting was to address the economic crisis, in terms of undertaking, “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.” Other items on the agenda included a plan to “continue to deceive millions of savers and investors who believe the hype about the supposed up-turn in the economy. They are about to be set up for massive losses and searing financial pain in the years ahead,”

The Bilderberg Plan in 2009: Remaking the Global Political Economy

by Andrew G. Marshall

From May 14-17, the global elite met in secret in Greece for the yearly Bilderberg conference, amid scattered and limited global media attention. Roughly 130 of the world’s most powerful individuals came together to discuss the pressing issues of today, and to chart a course for the next year. The main topic of discussion at this years meeting was the global financial crisis, which is no surprise, considering the list of conference attendees includes many of the primary architects of the crisis, as well as those poised to “solve” it.

The Agenda: The Restructuring of the Global Political Economy

Before the meeting began, Bilderberg investigative journalist Daniel Estulin reported on the main item of the agenda, which was leaked to him by his sources inside. Though such reports cannot be verified, his sources, along with those of veteran Bilderberg tracker, Jim Tucker, have proven to be shockingly accurate in the past. Apparently, the main topic of discussion at this year’s meeting was to address the economic crisis, in terms of undertaking, “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.” Other items on the agenda included a plan to “continue to deceive millions of savers and investors who believe the hype about the supposed up-turn in the economy. They are about to be set up for massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead,” and “There will be a final push for the enactment of Lisbon Treaty, pending on Irish voting YES on the treaty in Sept or October,”[1] which would give the European Union massive powers over its member nations, essentially making it a supranational regional government, with each country relegated to more of a provincial status.

Shortly after the meetings began, Bilderberg tracker Jim Tucker reported that his inside sources revealed that the group has on its agenda, “the plan for a global department of health, a global treasury and a shortened depression rather than a longer economic downturn.” Tucker reported that Swedish Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, “Made a speech advocating turning the World Health Organization into a world department of health, advocating turning the IMF into a world department of treasury, both of course under the auspices of the United Nations.” Further, Tucker reported that, “Treasury Secretary Geithner and Carl Bildt touted a shorter recession not a 10-year recession … partly because a 10 year recession would damage Bilderberg industrialists themselves, as much as they want to have a global department of labor and a global department of treasury, they still like making money and such a long recession would cost them big bucks industrially because nobody is buying their toys…..the tilt is towards keeping it short.”[2]

After the meetings finished, Daniel Estulin reported that, “One of Bilderberg’s primary concerns according to Estulin is the danger that their zeal to reshape the world by engineering chaos in order to implement their long term agenda could cause the situation to spiral out of control and eventually lead to a scenario where Bilderberg and the global elite in general are overwhelmed by events and end up losing their control over the planet.”[3]

On May 21, the Macedonian International News Agency reported that, “A new Kremlin report on the shadowy Bilderberg Group, who this past week held their annual meeting in Greece, states that the West’s financial, political and corporate elite emerged from their conclave after coming to an agreement that in order to continue their drive towards a New World Order dominated by the Western Powers, the US Dollar has to be ‘totally’ destroyed.” Further, the same Kremlin report apparently stated that, “most of the West’s wealthiest elite convened at an unprecedented secret meeting in New York called for and led by” David Rockefeller, “to plot the demise of the US Dollar.”[4]

The Secret Meeting of Billionaires

The meeting being referred to was a secret meeting where, “A dozen of the richest people in the world met for an unprecedented private gathering at the invitation of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to talk about giving away money,” held at Rockefeller University, and included notable philanthropists such as Gates, Buffett, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner. One attendee stated that, “It wasn’t secret,” but that, “It was meant to be a gathering among friends and colleagues. It was something folks have been discussing for a long time. Bill and Warren hoped to do this occasionally. They sent out an invite and people came.” Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer said, “Given how serious these economic times are, I don’t think it’s surprising these philanthropists came together,” and that, “They don’t typically get together and ask each other for advice.” The three hosts of the meeting were Buffet, Gates and David Rockefeller.[5] [See: Appendix 2: Bilderberg Connections to the Billionaire’s Meeting].

Bilderberg founding member David Rockefeller, Honourary Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations,
Honourary Chairman and Founder of the Trilateral Commission,
Chairman of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society,
former Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan.

At the meeting, “participants steadfastly refused to reveal the content of the discussion. Some cited an agreement to keep the meeting confidential. Spokesmen for Mr. Buffett, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Gates, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Soros and Ms. Winfrey and others dutifully declined comment, though some confirmed attendance.”[6] Reports indicate that, “They discussed how to address the global slump and expand their charitable activities in the downturn.”[7]

The UK newspaper The Times reported that these “leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population,” and that they “discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.” Interestingly, “The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at ‘security briefings’.” Further, “The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an ‘umbrella cause’ that could harness their interests,” and what was decided upon was that, “they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.” Ultimately, “a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat,” and that, “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.” One guest at the meeting said that, “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government.”[8]

The Leaked Report

Bilderberg investigative reporter Daniel Estulin reportedly received from his inside sources a 73-page Bilderberg Group meeting wrap-up for participants, which revealed that there were some serious disagreements among the participants. “The hardliners are for dramatic decline and a severe, short-term depression, but there are those who think that things have gone too far and that the fallout from the global economic cataclysm cannot be accurately calculated if Henry Kissinger’s model is chosen. Among them is Richard Holbrooke. What is unknown at this point: if Holbrooke’s point of view is, in fact, Obama’s.” The consensus view was that the recession would get worse, and that recovery would be “relatively slow and protracted,” and to look for these terms in the press over the next weeks and months.

Estulin reported, “that some leading European bankers faced with the specter of their own financial mortality are extremely concerned, calling this high wire act "unsustainable," and saying that US budget and trade deficits could result in the demise of the dollar.” One Bilderberger said that, “the banks themselves don’t know the answer to when (the bottom will be hit).” Everyone appeared to agree, “that the level of capital needed for the American banks may be considerably higher than the US government suggested through their recent stress tests.” Further, “someone from the IMF pointed out that its own study on historical recessions suggests that the US is only a third of the way through this current one; therefore economies expecting to recover with resurgence in demand from the US will have a long wait.” One attendee stated that, “Equity losses in 2008 were worse than those of 1929,” and that, “The next phase of the economic decline will also be worse than the ’30s, mostly because the US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt. Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.”[9]

According to Jim Tucker, Bilderberg is working on setting up a summit in Israel from June 8-11, where “the world’s leading regulatory experts” can “address the current economic situation in one forum.” In regards to the proposals put forward by Carl Bildt to create a world treasury department and world department of health under the United Nations, the IMF is said to become the World Treasury, while the World Health Organization is to become the world department of health. Bildt also reaffirmed using “climate change” as a key challenge to pursue Bilderberg goals, referring to the economic crisis as a “once-in-a-generation crisis while global warming is a once-in-a-millennium challenge.” Bildt also advocated expanding NAFTA through the Western hemisphere to create an American Union, using the EU as a “model of integration.”

The IMF reportedly sent a report to Bilderberg advocating its rise to becoming the World Treasury Department, and “U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner enthusiastically endorsed the plan for a World Treasury Department, although he received no assurance that he would become its leader.” Geithner further said, “Our hope is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight.”[10]

Bilderberg’s Plan in Action?

Reorganizing the Federal Reserve

Following the Bilderberg meeting, there were several interesting announcements made by key participants, specifically in regards to reorganizing the Federal Reserve. On May 21, it was reported that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “is believed to be leaning heavily towards giving the Federal Reserve a central role in future regulation,” and “it is understood that the Fed would take on some of the work currently undertaken by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.”[11]

On Wednesday, May 20, Geithner spoke before the Senate Banking Committee, at which he stated that, “there are important indications that our financial system is starting to heal.” In regards to regulating the financial system, Geithner stated that, “we must ensure that international rules for financial regulation are consistent with the high standards we will be implementing in the United States.”[12]
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Bloomberg reported that, “The Obama administration may call for stripping the Securities and Exchange Commission of some of its powers under a regulatory reorganization,” and that, “The proposal, still being drafted, is likely to give the Federal Reserve more authority to supervise financial firms deemed too big to fail. The Fed may inherit some SEC functions, with others going to other agencies.” Interestingly, “SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro’s agency has been mostly absent from negotiations within the administration on the regulatory overhaul, and she has expressed frustration about not being consulted.”

It was reported that “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was set to discuss proposals to change financial regulations last night at a dinner with National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers [who was also present at Bilderberg], former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker [also at Bilderberg], ex-SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt and Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University law professor who heads the congressional watchdog group for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.”[13] The Federal Reserve is a privately owned central bank, owned by its shareholders, consisting of the major banks the make up each regional Fed bank (the largest of which is JP Morgan Chase and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). This plan would essentially give a privately owned bank, which has governmental authority, the ability to regulate the banks that own it. It’s the equivalent of getting a Colonel to guard a General to whom he is directly answerable. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house. It is literally granting ownership over the financial regulator to the banks being regulated.

As Market Watch, an online publication of the Wall Street Journal, reported, “The Federal Reserve, created nearly 100 years ago in the aftermath of a financial panic, could be transformed into a different agency as the Obama administration reinvents the way government interacts with the financial system.” Referring to Geithner’s Senate appearance, it was reported that, “Geithner was also grilled on the cozy relationships that exist between the big banks and the regional Federal Reserve banks. Before Geithner joined the administration, he was president of the New York Fed, which is a strange public-private hybrid institution that is actually owned and run by the banks.” In response, “Geithner insisted that the private banks have no say over the policies of the New York Fed, but he acknowledged that the banks do have a say in hiring the president, who does make policy. The chairman of the New York Fed, Stephen Friedman, was forced to resign earlier this month because of perceived conflicts of interest due to his large holdings in Goldman Sachs.”[14]

The IMF as a Global Treasury

The Bilderberg agenda of creating a global treasury has already been started prior to the Bilderberg meeting, with decisions made during the G20 financial summit in April. Although the G20 seemed to frame it more in context of being formed into a global central bank, although it is likely the IMF could fill both roles.

Following the G20 meeting at the beginning of April, 2009, it was reported that, “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity,” as the Communiqué released by the G20 leaders stated that, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,” and that, “SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.” Essentially, “they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body.”[15] [See Appendix 2: Creating a Central Bank of the World]

Following the Bilderberg meeting, “President Obama has asked Congress to authorize $100 billion in loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help create a $500 billion global bailout fund,” which would give the IMF the essential prerogative of a global treasury, providing bailouts for countries in need around the world. Further, “the bill would allow the IMF to borrow up to $100 billion from the U.S. and increase the U.S. fiscal contribution to the IMF by $8 billion.” Elaborating on the program, it was reported that, “World leaders began on the global bailout initiative, called the New Arrangement for Borrowing (NAB), at the G-20 summit in early April. The president agreed at that time to make the additional funds available.” Obama wrote that, “Treasury Secretary Geithner concluded that the size of the NAB is woefully inadequate to deal with the type of severe economic and financial crisis we are experiencing, and I agree with him.”[16]

With the G20 decision to increase the usage of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), forming a de facto world currency, it was recently reported that, “Sub-Saharan Africa will receive around $10 billion from the IMF in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to help its economies weather the global financial crisis,” and that, “As part of a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the world economic downturn agreed at April’s G20 summit, the IMF will issue $250 billion worth of SDRs, which can be used to boost foreign currency reserves.”[17]

Recent reports have also indicated that the IMF’s role in issuing SDRs goes hand in hand with the Bilderberg discussion on the potential collapse of the US dollar, and, “Transforming the dollar standard into an SDR-based system would be a major break with a policy that has lasted more than 60 years.” It was reported that, “There are two ways in which the dollar’s role in the international monetary system can be reduced. One possibility is a gradual, market-determined erosion of the dollar as a reserve currency in favor of the euro. But, while the euro’s international role – especially its use in financial markets – has increased since its inception, it is hard to envisage it overtaking the dollar as the dominant reserve currency in the foreseeable future.” However, “With the dollar’s hegemony unlikely to be seriously undermined by market forces, at least in the short and medium-term, the only way to bring about a major reduction in its role as a reserve currency is by international agreement.” This is where the SDRs come into play, as “One way to make the SDR the major reserve currency relatively soon would be to create and allocate a massive amount of new SDRs to the IMF’s members.”[18] This is, interestingly, exactly what is happening with Africa and the IMF now.

Former IMF Managing Director Jacques de Larosière recently stated that the current financial crisis, “given its scope, presents a unique opening to improve institutions, and there is already a danger that the chance might be missed if the different actors cannot agree to changes by the time economic growth resumes.” He is now an adviser with BNP Paribas, a corporation highly represented at Bilderberg meetings, and he was head of the Treasury of France when Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was President of France, who is a regular of the Bilderberg Group.[19]

The Guardian Covers Bilderberg

The British paper, the Guardian, was the only major mainstream news publication to provide ongoing coverage of the Bilderberg meeting over the weekend. His first columns were satirical and slightly mocking, referring to it as, “A long weekend at a luxury hotel, where the world’s elite get to shake hands, clink glasses, fine-tune their global agenda and squabble over who gets the best sun loungers. I’m guessing that Henry Kissinger brings his own, has it helicoptered in and guarded 24/7 by a CIA special ops team.”[20] However, as the weekend dragged on, his reporting took a change of tone. He reported on the Saturday that, “I know that I’m being followed. I know because I’ve just been chatting to the plainclothes policemen I caught following me,” and he was arrested twice in the first day of the meetings for attempting to take photographs as the limousines entered the hotel.[21]

He later reported that he wasn’t sure what they were discussing inside the hotel, but that he has “a sense of something rotten in the state of Greece,” and he further stated, “Three days and I’ve been turned into a suspect, a troublemaker, unwanted, ill at ease, tired and a bit afraid.” He then went on to write that, “Bilderberg is all about control. It’s about "what shall we do next?" We run lots of stuff already, how about we run some more? How about we make it easier to run stuff? More efficient. Efficiency is good. It would be so much easier with a single bank, a single currency, a single market, a single government. How about a single army? That would be pretty cool. We wouldn’t have any wars then. This prawn cocktail is GOOD. How about a single way of thinking? How about a controlled internet?,” and then, “How about not.”

He makes a very astute point, countering the often postulated argument that Bilderberg is simply a forum where people can speak freely, writing: “I am so unbelievably backteeth sick of power being flexed by the few. I’ve had it flexed in my face for three days, and it’s up my nose like a wasp. I don’t care whether the Bilderberg Group is planning to save the world or shove it in a blender and drink the juice, I don’t think politics should be done like this,” and the author, Charlie Skelton, eloquently stated, “If they were trying to cure cancer they could do it with the lights on.” He further explained that, “Bilderberg is about positions of control. I get within half a mile of it, and suddenly I’m one of the controlled. I’m followed, watched, logged, detained, detained again. I’d been put in that position by the "power" that was up the road.”[22]

On Sunday, May 17, Skelton reported that when he asked the police chief why he was being followed, the chief responded asking, “Why you here?” to which Skelton said he was there to cover the Bilderberg conference, after which the chief stated, “Well, that is the reason! That is why! We are finished!”[23] Do reporters get followed around and stalked by police officers when they cover the World Economic Forum? No. So why does it happen with Bilderberg if all it is, is a conference to discuss ideas freely?

On the Monday following the conference, Skelton wrote that, “It isn’t just me who’s been hauled into police custody for daring to hang around half a mile from the hotel gates. The few journalists who’ve made the trip to Vouliagmeni this year have all been harassed and harried and felt the business end of a Greek walkie-talkie. Many have been arrested. Bernie, from the American Free Press, and Gerhard the documentarian (sounds like a Dungeons and Dragons character) chartered a boat from a nearby marina to try to get photos from the sea. They were stopped three miles from the resort. By the Greek navy.” As Skelton said himself, “My dispatches on the 2009 conference, if they mean anything at all, represent nothing more acutely than the absence of thorough mainstream reporting.”[24]

Skelton’s final report on Bilderberg from May 19, showed how far he had gone in his several days of reporting on the meeting. From writing jokingly about the meeting, to discovering that he was followed by the Greek State Security force. Skelton mused, “So who is the paranoid one? Me, hiding in stairwells, watching the pavement behind me in shop windows, staying in the open for safety? Or Bilderberg, with its two F-16s, circling helicopters, machine guns, navy commandos and policy of repeatedly detaining and harassing a handful of journalists? Who’s the nutter? Me or Baron Mandelson? Me or Paul Volker, the head of Obama’s economic advisory board? Me or the president of Coca-Cola?”

Skelton stated that, “Publicity is pure salt to the giant slug of Bilderberg. So I suggest next year we turn up with a few more tubs. If the mainstream press refuses to give proper coverage to this massive annual event, then interested citizens will have to: a people’s media.”

Amazingly, Skelton made the pronouncement that what he learned after the Bilderberg conference, was that, “we must fight, fight, fight, now – right now, this second, with every cubic inch of our souls – to stop identity cards,” as, “It’s all about the power to ask, the obligation to show, the justification of one’s existence, the power of the asker over the subservience of the asked.” He stated that he “learned this from the random searches, detentions, angry security goon proddings and thumped police desks without number that I’ve had to suffer on account of Bilderberg: I have spent the week living in a nightmare possible future and many different terrible pasts. I have had the very tiniest glimpse into a world of spot checks and unchecked security powers. And it has left me shaken. It has left me, literally, bruised.” Pointedly, he explains that, “The identity card turns you from a free citizen into a suspect.”[25]

Who was there?

Royalty

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, the largest shareholder in Royal Dutch Shell

Among the members of the Bilderberg Group are various European monarchs. At this years meeting, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands was present, who happens to be the largest single shareholder in Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world’s largest corporations. She was joined by one of her three sons, Prince Constantijn, who also attended the meeting. Prince Constantijn has worked with the Dutch European Commissioner for the EU, as well as having been a strategic policy consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton in London, a major strategy and technology consulting firm with expertise in Economic and Business Analysis, Intelligence and Operations Analysis and Information Technology, among many others. Prince Constantijn has also been a policy researcher for RAND Corporation in Europe. RAND was initially founded as a global policy think tank that was formed to offer research and analysis to the US Armed Forces, however, it now works with governments, foundations, international organizations and commercial organizations.[26] Also present among European Royalty was Prince Philippe of Belgium, and Queen Sofia of Spain.

Private Bankers

As usual, the list of attendees was also replete with names representing the largest banks in the world. Among them, David Rockefeller, former CEO and Chairman of Chase Manhattan, now JP Morgan Chase, of which he was, until recently, Chairman of the International Advisory Board; and still sits as Honourary Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Chairman of the Board of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, Honourary Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, which he founded alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski; also a founding member of the Bilderberg Group, prominent philanthropist and is the current patriarch of one of the world’s richest and most powerful banking dynasties.

Also present was Josef Ackermann, a Swiss banker who is CEO of Deutsche Bank, also a non-executive director of Royal Dutch Shell; Deputy Chairman of Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering corporation; he is also a member of the International Advisory Council of Zurich Financial Services Group; Chairman of the Board of the Institute International of Finance, the world’s only global association of financial institutions; and Vice Chairman of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.[27]

Roger Altman was also present at the Bilderberg meeting, an investment banker, private equity investor and former Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration. Other bankers at this years meeting include Ana Patricia Botin, Chairman of the Spanish bank, Banco Español de Crédito, formerly having worked with JP Morgan; Frederic Oudea, CEO and newly appointed Chairman of the Board of French bank Societe Generale; Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, an Italian banker and economist, formerly Italy’s Minister of Economy and Finance; Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman of Investor AB; Marcus Wallenberg, CEO of Investor AB; and George David, CEO of United Technologies Corporation, who also sits on the board of Citigroup, member of the Business Council, the Business Roundtable, and is Vice Chairman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. [For more on the Peterson Institute, see: Appendix 1]

Canadian bankers include W. Edmund Clark, President and CEO of TD Bank Financial Group, also a member of the board of directors of the C.D. Howe Institute, a prominent Canadian think tank; Frank McKenna, Deputy Chairman of TD Bank Financial Group, former Canadian Ambassador to the United States, former Premier of New Brunswick; and Indira Samarasekera, President of the University of Alberta, who is also on the board of Scotiabank, one of Canada’s largest banks.

Central Bankers

Of course, among the notable members of the Bilderberg Group, are the world’s major central bankers. Among this years members are the Governor of the National Bank of Greece, Governor of the Bank of Italy, President of the European Investment Bank, James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank, and Nout Wellink, on the board of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).[28] Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank was also present.[29] There is no indication that the Governor of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke was present, which would be an odd turn of events, considering that the Federal Reserve Governor is always present at Bilderberg meetings, alongside the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William C. Dudley. I have contacted the New York Fed inquiring if Dudley visited Greece or went to any meetings in Greece between May 14-17, or if another senior representative from the New York Fed went in his stead. I have yet to get a response.

The Obama Administration at Bilderberg

National Security Adviser General James Jones

The Obama administration was heavily represented at this years Bilderberg meeting. Among the attendees were Keith B. Alexander, a Lieutenant General of U.S. Army and Director of the National Security Agency, the massive spying agency of the United States; Timothy Geithner, US Treasury Secretary and former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan; General James Jones, United States National Security Advisor; Henry Kissinger, Obama’s special envoy to Russia, longtime Bilderberg member and former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor; Dennis Ross, special advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; David Patraeus, Commander of CENTCOM, (U.S. Central Command, in the Middle East), Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House’s National Economic Council, former Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, former President of Harvard University, former Chief Economist of the World Bank; Paul Volcker, former Governor of the Federal Reserve System and Chair of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board; Robert Zoellick, former Chairman of Goldman Sachs and current President of the World Bank;[30] and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.[31]

Other Notable Names

Among many others present at the meeting are Viscount Étienne Davignon, former Vice President of the European Commission, and Honourary Chairman of the Bilderberg Group; Francisco Pinto Balsemão, former Prime Minister of Portugal; Franco Bernabè, CEO of Telecom Italia and Vice Chairman of Rothschild Europe; Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden; Kenneth Clarke, Shadow Business Secretary in the UK; Richard Dearlove, former head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services (MI6); Donald Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Company; Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, Secretary-General of NATO; John Kerr, member of the British House of Lords and Deputy Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell; Jessica Matthews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute; Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister; J. Robert S. Prichard, CEO of Torstar Corporation and President Emeritus of the University of Toronto; Peter Sutherland, former Director General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), first Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and is currently Chairman of British Petroleum (BP) and Goldman Sachs International as well as being a board member of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, Vice Chairman of the European Roundtable of Industrialists, and longtime Bilderberg member; Peter Thiel, on the board of directors of Facebook; Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell; Martin Wolf, Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator of the Financial Times newspaper; and Fareed Zakaria, US journalist and board member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[32] There were also some reports that this years meeting would include Google CEO Eric Schmidt, as well as Wall Street Journal Editor Paul Gigot,[33] both of whom attended last years meeting.[34]

Conclusion

Clearly, it was the prerogative of this year’s Bilderberg meeting to exploit the global financial crisis as much as possible to reach goals they have been striving toward for many years. These include the creation of a Global Treasury Department, likely in conjunction with or embodied in the same institution as a Global Central Bank, both of which seem to be in the process of being incorporated into the IMF.

Naturally, Bilderberg meetings serve the interests of the people and organizations that are represented there. Due to the large amount of representatives from the Obama administration that were present, US policies revolving around the financial crisis are likely to have emerged from and serve the interests of the Bilderberg Group. Given the heavy representation of Obama’s foreign policy establishment at the Bilderberg meeting, it seemed surprising to not have received any more information regarding US foreign policy from this year’s meeting, perhaps having to do with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

However, the US recently decided to fire the general who oversaw the Afghan war, being replaced with “Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a former Green Beret who recently commanded the military’s secretive special operations forces in Iraq.”[35] From 2003 to 2008, McChrystal “led the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which oversees the military’s most sensitive forces, including the Army’s Delta Force,” and who Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh singled out as the head of VP Cheney’s “executive assassination wing.”[36]

So, given these recent changes, as well as the high degree of representation Obama’s foreign policy establishment held at Bildebrerg this year, there were likely to have been some decisions or at least discussion of the escalation of the Afghan war and expansion into Pakistan. However, it is not surprising that the main item on the agenda was the global financial crisis. Without a doubt, the next year will be an interesting one, and the elite are surely hoping to make it a productive one.

“….we know that 3,000 years ago the Celtic people resided in places like present-day Switzerland. Just because 3,000 years ago some people believed that God gave Jerusalem specifically to the Jewish people, that doesn’t mean that you ignore the next 3,000 years and the place should become the capital of Israel based on biblical references. The idea that the rights of the Palestinian people can be ignored because of religious text written down thousands of years ago is absolutely ludicrous.” CRAIG MURRAY

God is NOT in the real estate business. I used to think lie that, but then remembered that I approve of the reconquest of Spain and would rejoice if Constantinople was reurned to the Christians

Any person ascribing to and in any way, supporting an ideology of separation and domination of all humankind, recognizing out-group people as ‘beastial’ and ‘only looking like ‘humans’ to better serve ‘the chosen people’ are collaborators, even if only in a small way.

All people should recognize the inherent anti-social imperative of this Torah-Talmud ideology, those self-recognizing as ‘jew’ should publicly and definitely renounce this ideology and move on with the rest, and as part of humanity.

Nationalism is a transitional state towards empire. It can never be stable.

It is based on the principle of ego, which is inherently expansive.

No Western political entity has ever been stable.

Stable entities, like Egypt or China, are based on limiting ego. A completely different approach to the world.

Modern diverse western states are riven by internal factions. Nationalism would transfer those internal ego fights to the outside world.

Internal ego fights would become external ego fights.

Many people think this would be an improvement over our current situation. We’ve lived in that would before.

Our current situation was an attempt to escape that world – by turning ego fights internal. That created it’s own problems, as we see.

The West has been unable to conceive of politics as cooperative rather than competitive – it oscillates between internal competition between groups and factions, or internal unity for the purpose of competing on the world stage.

But always, competition, dialectics, tension.

It is a nice dream, that we can limit ego to “just the right amount”. But ego has its own momentum. Ego must be externally limited. We cannot count on it stopping at just the right moment.

Nationalism may be one element, but a state cannot be “based” on it, and no stable state has.

Maybe it’s time to look beyond.

But, we probably won’t, because the West has lost its creativity, and can only shuffle between a limited menu of options that have become fossilized.